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Thursday, 6 February 2014

The foundation
stone laying ceremony for the Punjab State War Heroes Memorial and Museum at
Amritsar is expected to be a grand affair. Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh
and at least five former services chiefs are scheduled to attend it. The stone
will be laid by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on February 12. Gen Shankar
Roy Chowdhury, Gen JJ Singh, Gen Deepak Kapoor, Adm Madhvendra Singh and Adm VS
Sekhawat are among the ex-chiefs who have agreed to attend the event. About
25,000 ex-servicemen of all ranks from across the state, besides a large number
of civilians, are also expected to converge on the venue, for which special
transport arrangements are being made. Students of Sainik School, Kapurthala,
Punjab Public School, Nabha, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Institute,
Mohali and NCC cadets from Amritsar would also participate in the function.
Gallantry awardees would also be honoured on the occasion.

With a 45m
stainless steel sword, signifying strength and courage, being the memorial's
central point, the complex will include six state-of-the-art galleries that
would showcase the martial heritage and history of Punjab from the times of
Guru Hargobind Singh till the present day through images, paintings, artifacts,
weapons and informative panels, 5-D auditorium, laser shows and restaurants.
Spread over 7 acres with landscaped gardens that would reflect three different
war zones-pre-British era, British era and post-British era-the project is
estimated to cost about Rs 100 crore and will take two years to complete.

33 senior officers
apply for PESCO chief's post

Thirty-three
senior retired defence officers have applied for the lone post of Chairman,
Punjab Ex-servicemen Corporation (PESCO), which has been lying vacant for the
past few months. The aspirants for the post include five officers of the rank
of Lieutenant General and 10 officers of the rank of Major General. The post
has traditionally been held by a retired Major General, barring a couple of
instances.

The selection
committee is headed by the Chief Secretary, Punjab, and the appointment is
expected to be finalised this month. To be eligible, the aspirant should have
held the rank of Brigadier or equivalent in the services, belong to the state
of Punjab and be below 65 years of age. Set up by the state government, PESCO
is involved in the welfare of ex-servicemen, their widows and dependents. It
provides them post-retirement employment, financial assistance and undertakes
other welfare schemes.

Agusta controversy
continues to simmer

The AgustaWestland
helicopter deal continues to simmer, now at the political level. The Ministry
of Defence has cancelled the Rs 3,600-crore deal for purchasing 12 copters for
VVIP use and the company has been barred from participating in the Defence
Expo, starting February 6 in the Capital. The BJP is demanding that the names
of all those named in the Italian court of law hearing the case be made public.
The Issue was raised in Parliament on February 5 and BJP MPs raised slogans
from the Opposition stands. The matter now looks headed to become a poll issue.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140206/nation.htm#16

India eyes better
ties as German Prez arrives

Tribune News
service

New Delhi,
February 5

India and Germany
today discussed ways to further enhance bilateral ties. Visiting German
President Joachim Gauck held talks with President Pranab Mukherjee,
Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a range of
issues.

Gauck, who arrived
here last night on a five-day visit to India, was given a ceremonial reception
at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Relations between
India and Germany have traditionally been cordial and close. The two countries
are strategic partners since 2000. With the commencement of Inter-Governmental
Consultations in 2011, there has been significant progress in all areas of
bilateral cooperation through regular high-level exchanges at the Head of
Government level, cooperation in strategic areas, growing economic and
commercial ties and increased interaction in the fields of education, science
and technology, culture and people-to-people relations.

Germany continues
to be India's largest trading partner in Europe. India and Germany also work
closely in the international arena.

"An incident
about alleged hacking of BSNL network by Huawei has come to notice. The
government has constituted an interministerial team to investigate the
matter," Minister of State for Communications and IT Killi Kruparani said.
There were reports of Huawei hackers targetting a mobile tower in Andhra
Pradesh. — PTI

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=827706

541 Attempts to
Infiltrate Into J&K in Last Two Years: Govt

In the last two
years, there have been 541 attempts to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir while
65 terrorists were killed in 2013 in encounters with the Indian Army, Defence
Minister A K Antony informed Rajya Sabha today.

"In 2012 and
2013, there have been 541 infiltration attempts in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2013,
65 terrorists were killed in J and K in encounters with the Indian Army,"
he said in a written reply.

"No Pakistani
soldier was apprehended on the LoC in 2013. However, on February 14, last year,
one Pakistan Army soldier was killed while intruding across the LoC in the
Naushera sector," the Defence Minister said.

To a query on
AgustaWestland chopper scam, he said the government has scrapped the VVIP
chopper deal with effect from January 1 on grounds of breach of pre-integrity
pact.

"No decision
has been taken till date to debar the said company," the Minister said.

Replying to
another query, Antony said in last five years, three MiG-29 combat aircraft
have met with accidents and these mishaps have been investigated by the IAF.

On the issue of
large number of services personnel not being able to cast their votes, Antony
said, "The matter relating to the further facilitation of voting by
defence personnel has been taken up with the Election Commission of
India."

On setting up of a
national war memorial, the Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh said a
Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Antony has recommended its construction at
the India Gate hexagon.

"The Urban
Development Ministry is processing the recommendations for approval by the
competent authority," he said.

LONDON — Britain
sent a military officer to advise India before Indian forces stormed the Golden
Temple in Amritsar in 1984, leaving hundreds dead, but the advice was largely
ignored and had little impact on the bloody outcome, the British government
said on Tuesday.

In publishing an
inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the attack on the temple, the holiest
shrine for Sikhs, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the tactics India used
were so different from those suggested by the British officer that London bore
no responsibility for what followed.

The raid on the
Golden Temple, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, was designed to flush
out separatists. Estimates of the number of victims vary, but Mr. Hague said on
Tuesday that official figures put the death toll at 575, while other reports
suggested “as many as 3,000 people were killed, including pilgrims caught in
the crossfire.”

Britain’s role in
the episode came to light last month when internal government documents were
released under rules allowing for the publication of official records after 30
years. On Tuesday, Mr. Hague rejected requests from some lawmakers for an
apology for Britain’s role. He said an apology was not justified by the
investigation done by the nation’s top civil servant, Jeremy Heywood, the
cabinet secretary.

“If any of us thought that any
British assistance had contributed to unnecessary loss of life and to suffering
in this or any other case,” Mr. Hague said in Parliament, “then we would all
want to say that this was a mistake and, for the country, to make an apology.
But that is not what is established by the cabinet secretary’s report.”

Britain’s assistance was, Mr.
Hague said, “purely advisory, limited and provided to the Indian government at
an early stage in their planning.”

Mr. Heywood’s inquiry
confirmed that a British military officer visited India from Feb. 8 to Feb. 17,
1984, conducted reconnaissance of the temple site and advised India’s
intelligence services. But the report emphasized that there were significant
differences between the advice offered and the operation that took place in
June 1984. By that time, dissident forces in Amritsar, in northwestern India
near the border with Pakistan, had increased, as had their fortifications.

“In particular, the element of
surprise was not at the heart of the operation,” the report said. “Nor was
simultaneous helicopter insertion of assault forces to dominate critical
areas.”

The report said that India had
requested the advice from Britain, but Mr. Heywood described it as “a one-off”
and said that the government “did not link the provision of this military
advice to defense sales.”

Mr. Hague said that British
officials had searched 200 files and more than 23,000 documents in the inquiry,
but that “some military files covering various operations were destroyed in
November 2009, as part of a routine process undertaken by the Ministry of
Defense.”

Last month, the BBC reported
that the Indian general who led the operation to take the Golden Temple, Kuldip
Singh Brar, had denied using British help.

The Russian
defence export company is offering a wide range of products to all three wings
of the Indian armed forces at the defence exhibition, which begins on February
6 in New Delhi.

Rosoboronexport is
looking to expand cooperation with India and is focussing on joint production
and development with the country, the Russian company said on Wednesday.
“Expanding joint development and production efforts on weaponry and military
equipment will be among the key topics during talks between Rosoboronexport and
Indian partners,” at the DEFEXPO India 2014, Rosoboronexport said in a press
note.

“This is India’s biggest arms
exhibition and therefore Russia will be presented here on a large scale,” Ivan
Goncharenko, First Deputy General Director of Rosoboronexport said in the press
statement. “Clearly, we’re planning to promote a large number of army and naval
equipment, air defence systems and aircraft models at DEFEXPO India. Moreover,
in almost all cases the upcoming talks are directly related to setting up joint
ventures, establishing licensed production, and transfer of technology –
precisely such cooperation is the mainstream of our bilateral relations.”

Rosoboronexport
said it would hold talks with Indian partners on current and future projects,
including upgrading of previously delivered equipment, including the BMP-2
infantry fighting vehicles, T-72 and the T-90S tanks. The company added that it
expects to discuss the progress of the tender to supply self-propelled
artillery systems. “Among its contenders is the Russian upgraded Msta-S 155mm
self-propelled howitzer, which is undergoing trials in India. The howitzer’s
chassis has a high level of commonality for components and units with the
chassis of the T-90S MBT, whose licensed production has already been mastered
at India’s Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi,” the company said in the statement.

The ongoing work
on setting up a Russian-Indian joint venture to manufacture rocket projectiles
for the Smerch multiple launch rocket system may be considered a promising new
area for mutually beneficial cooperation on army weapons, Rosoboronexport said.

The Russian
company said it expects India to be interested in the T-90S MBT, T-90S-based
engineer vehicles, BMPT-72 tank support combat vehicle, Sprut SD self-propelled
anti-tank gun, tactical automated command and control system among other
offerings.

Offerings to the
Indian Navy

After-sales
service of the INS Vikramaditya will be among the naval issues to be discussed
at the expo, the Russian company said, adding that it was ready to continue
consultations to promote the Amur-1650 diesel-electric submarine within the
upcoming tender for design and construction of the Project 75I submarines for
the Indian Navy, as well as to supply an additional series of Project 11356
frigates.

“Russian patrol and landing
craft, ship weapon systems, Bal-E coastal missile system, and a variety of
radar and sonar coastal zone surveillance systems have also good prospects in
the Indian market,” Rosoboronexport said. “The Be-200 multipurpose amphibious
aircraft offers a number of advantages over the competitors within the upcoming
Indian Navy’s tender to purchase amphibians for reconnaissance and search and
rescue operations and transport service between the island territories.”

For the Indian Air Force, the
Russian exporter is offering the Ka-226T light utility helicopter, which is a
strong contender in the Indian tender to supply 197 reconnaissance and
surveillance helicopters.

Rosoboronexport, a subsidiary
of the Rostec Corporation, is the sole state-owned arms trade company in the
Russia authorized to export the full range of military and dual-purpose
products, technologies and services.

In an
extraordinary endeavour and perhaps for the first time, the Indian Army invoked
the struggles and ardors of civilians from borderland Ladakh during its annual
day celebration this year. Lt. Gen. Sanjeev Chachra, Army Commander of Northern
Command paid tribute while awarding three civilians for their exemplary valour
that included porters working with the army at Siachan glaciers. The gesture, a
marked departure from traditionally awarding only the army personnel, would
surely raise the morals of hapless civilians battling two difficult fronts but
so far remained hopelessly in the slough of despond.

The awardees
included Stanzin Padma, a porter who exhibited exemplary grit by digging out
live two army soldiers trapped under snow avalanche last summer. Not just this,
on 6 December 2012, Padma saved fellow porter Nima Norboo who had fallen into a
200 feet deep crevasse while operating a trolley for 16 Rajput. In a daunting
exercise that lasted for 20 hours, Padma physically extricated Norboo from
treacherous crevasse. Nima Norboo himself displayed extraordinary nerve to keep
himself alive for over 20 hours in sub-arctic temperatures. But for Padma’s
nerve-racking effort, death for Norboo was certain. He has been through
traumatic head surgery and suffered amputation of both his legs and left hand
due to grade IV frostbite. After months of treatment at 153 army hospital,
Norboo was left to his own fate without even an artificial limb. He came from
Waris, the last village on border with Pakistan in Turtuk Sector. Norboo now
redundant his survival along with two small children seemed improbable. But
fate of many despondent porters like Norboo changed after Lt. Gen. Rakesh
Sharma, newly joined GOC 14 Corps promptly recognised their sacrifices when
this author also brought the case to his attention last summer. Not only the
Army gave justice but also conferred him with honour for his exceptional
contribution to national security. Another hero included Jigmet Urgain who had
to leave army after a mine blast left him completely wounded. He lost his
eyesight as well as both hands. However, it didn’t distraught Jigmet from
helping his less privileged brethren which earned him bravery award from Army.

Lt. Gen. Rakesh
Sharma, a sound military geo-strategic thinker and ex-colleague of this author
at IDSA knows that big challenges never come easy. In a first, the Army picked
another civilian hero Rigzin Tangay from Demchok, a border village over facing
a Chinese military post in Eastern Ladakh, for this year’s award. Tangay’s
contribution for combating the PLA’s intrusions is known to the nation through
media. Yet, except for Army, no civilian authority or political class could
even set their eyes on these heroes. They were only busy pushing their own
lobbyists and fixers for the Padma awards, the sheen and credibility of these
anyway seem fading away. In a unique public discourse on the Depsang incident
held in New Delhi last summer, Tangay left India’s elite security community
stunned when he said that the next generation will not live along borderland
due to government’s apathy. Yet, the Army remains the only hope. This time
professionalism of military leadership has been proved. It still remains
unvaryingly the country’s most effective institution, far ahead of our usual laggards
as political, bureaucracy and the media.

For the GOC 14
Corps, it was a masterstroke to offset the loss of public confidence and
attitude towards the Army - a trend begun in the aftermath of Kargil War. In
the face of growing Chinese intrusions like in Depsang, Chushul, Demchok and
Chumur regaining people’s trust is utmost important. To be sure, the Corps has
risen to the challenge, and undertaking measures what would prove to be a
dramatic change, especially when the Army is raising a Mountain Strike Corps
with an offensive capability to penetrate into Tibet.

Military remains a
catalyst; the infrastructure built compensate for the short falls of government
development plans in Ladakh. The DRDO projects had trickle-down effect on local
agriculture growth and it needs to do more innovative work to stabilize
sparsely populated eastern Ladakh prone to Chinese incursions. All in all
military’s role still remains paramount for tackling a range of social
problems, virtually proving employment to the poor.

To reshape public
confidence further, the Union Home Ministry should quickly address the long
festering issue of redeploying at least one regiment of the sashastra seema bal
(SSB) in Ladakh. Initially raised as Special Service Bureau in the 1960s, SSB
effectively involved natives for building a second line of defence against
adversaries. It resembled China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps
(XPCC), known as Bingtuan, a quasi-military force working as an
"ecological warrior" to defend frontier desert, mountains and
wasteland under adverse conditions. SSB gave guerrilla training to even women
folks and kept the public morale upbeat at all odds. The decision to shift the
force (post-Kargil) to the Indo-Nepal border proved disastrous for security and
demographic profile of borderland. Its dislocation left the natives
demoralized; hundreds of labourers, porters, transporters and others were
deprived of their livelihood that also entailed social discontentment. Set
adrift by lack of employment, thousands of youths in Ladakh stray in distress.
Ladakh component of SSB personnel remain scattered across the UP, Bihar and
Bengal plains who routinely complain of heat-strokes, snake-bites and
malaria-attacks. The relocation would allow these young men to return to their
native land stronger mentally and physically; better fit to serve in the high
altitude warfare conditions. Revisiting the policy by the Home Ministry should
be considered as deemed necessary for national interest.

New Delhi: For
providing its personnel protection against the lethal bullets of rifles such as
AK-47, the Indian Army has issued tenders to procure around two lakh
bullet-proof jackets and helmets for its troops deployed in counter-insurgency
operations.

The two tenders
were issued last year under Army's modernisation programme of its Infantry
soldiers known as the Future-Infantry Soldier as a System (F-INSAS) under which
it will acquire?1,86,168 bulletproof jackets for its personnel along with
ballistic helmets with internal communication gear.

"We have
participated in both the tenders to supply these bullet-proof jackets and
ballistic helmets with internal communication facilities," Indian firm
MKU's Managing Director Neeraj Gupta said here.

He said his firm
has responded to the bids issued by the Army under the category in which only
six Indian vendors have been allowed to compete.

Gupta said after
acquiring a German manufacturing facility, his firm has supplied protective
gear to more than 100 international forces and they have been used by them in
conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

As per the Army's
requirement, it wants jackets with hard armour plates for front, rear, sides,
upper arms, groin and throat, capable of protecting against 7.62mm x 39mm mild
steel core ammunition fired from an AK-47 from 10 metres.

The Army is
deployed in counter-insurgency operations for several decades in North East and
Jammu and Kashmir and has been facing shortage of these protective gear as
pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor General in its recent report.

Gupta said his firm
is looking towards providing armoured protection to military helicopters that
operate in insurgent and terrorist-infested areas in the country.